Online tutorial on how write a structured scientific report, e.g. laboratory report, field trip write-up, or original research.

How to Manage Your References

A Reference Manager can help you:

store, organise, and format references.

easily insert citations into Word documents

automatically generate a reference list/bibliography.

There are several software options including Endnote, Zotero, Mendeley, and Papers. It can be hard to decide which one will best suit you. The new Library Guide Managing Your References can help you make that decision. It also includes information on how to use the software and access support.

LaTeX Document Preparation Resources

LaTeX is a typrsetting program used to format scientific documents. It has become the de-facto standard for writing academic papers which require mathematical symbols.LaTeX can be downloaded free of charge and is available for Mac, and PC (for Windows & Linux).

LaTeX is recommended (sometimes required) by University of Otago Mathematics and Statistics staff when writing papers, particularly for papers stage 3 and above.

There are several websites that will be useful for those learning LaTex, including:

Wondering how to organise of all your research information so you can easily add references ot your LaTeX document?

JabRef Reference Management software helps you store, organise, and correctly cite all your research information with incredible ease. There are many options available, but here are three popular examples:

JabRef is a reference management software that uses BibTeX as its native format. JabRef provides an easy-to-use interface for editing BibTeX files, for importing data from online scientific databases, and for managing and searching BibTeX files. JabRef is released under the terms of the GPL license. The application is programmed in Java, and is maintained for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Go to the JabRef website to download the latest version.